238 
EXTINCT MONSTERS. 
there is not on any of the bones any trace of such violence as must 
have left its mark if the death of the birds had been caused by a 
Moa-hunting mankind. Finally, it does not appear that in this 
particular district there ever has been, at any traceable period 
of the physical history of the land, a forest vegetation, such as 
might suggest that the catastrophe was caused by fire. 
“ The question how to account for the slaughter is raised like- 
wise by two previous finds of Moa bones. The first of these, at 
Glenmark, in Canterbury, was the most memorable, because, 
being the first, it made the deepest impression. The second 
great find, far inland, up the Molineux River, otherwise the 
Clutha, was beneath the diluvium that is now worked by the 
gold-digger. The spot must have been the site of a lagoon, 
at one point of which there was a spring. Round about this 
point there were found the remains of, it was reckoned, five 
hundred individual Moas. The bones were quietly laid there, 
with, in some cases, the ‘ heap ’ of digestive stones in situ along 
v;ith the skeletons. And Mr. Booth, whose elaborate investiga- 
tion of this case is recorded in the annual volume of The New 
Zealand Institute., suggested the theory that the climate of New 
Zealand ^as changing to a degree of cold intolerable to Moa 
nature ; and that the birds, fleeing from its rigour, sought comfort 
in the spring of water, sheltering their featherless breast in it, and 
so dozing out of this troubled life. And in this new find the 
wonder comes back unmitigated, as a mystery unsolved. For 
here is no bog deep enough, as in the first instance, nor lagoon 
spring, as in the second, to account for that multitude of giant 
birds dying in one spot. 
“ Another curious puzzle is, on close inspection, found every- 
where in the Moa bone discoveries. It is hardly possible to 
make sure that the bones of any one complete Moa skeleton all 
belong to the same individual. I heard some one say the other 
day that it is not certain that any Moa in any earthly museum has 
all his own bones, and only his own. 
